


Leaves, Like the Things of Man

by dogpoet



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-25
Updated: 2009-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birth and death in measure. The events of <i>The Wrath of Khan</i> and <i>The Search for Spock</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaves, Like the Things of Man

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Leaves, Like the Things of Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074498) by [curlybear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlybear/pseuds/curlybear), [dogpoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet)



_Ah! as the heart grows older  
It will come to such sights colder_

\- Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

He has never believed in God.

But as he presides over Spock's funeral service, he is a man pushed to the edge of existence, facing a loss more total than anything in his entire life. He understands, finally, that people believe in God because they need to. They need hope. He needs hope. He needs to believe that Spock is somewhere out there, and that they'll be together again, even if it's years from now, in some afterworld where they will be only ether, incorporeal.

Something about the newly-made planet rotating below them makes him believe in renewal, in life after death. _As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be._ He presses his hand to the window of the observation deck, and imagines Spock's body down there on the surface of the planet being infused with new life. He remembers how they touched each other through glass, their palms together, so many words unspoken.

He can still feel Spock. He turns in the Captain's chair, expecting to see his friend behind him. He thinks he hears Spock's voice in the corridors, and he often stops to listen, to find the source of the sound. The symptoms are most severe in his quarters where the presence is so strong it keeps him from sleeping. He touches his own hand to his cheek, eyes closed, pretending it is Spock's hand, remembering how it felt, those gentle fingers, that mouth on his as they came together, sometimes tenderly, sometimes not, their bodies filled with knowledge.

It is here, in his quarters alone, that he finally lets himself cry, aching in a way he can't name. He regrets the years they weren't together, and wishes he'd had the courage to confess his feelings earlier.

Spock would say, "What is, is," and he can't change the past.

In the beginning, he was brash and impulsive. Spock was methodical and quiet. They clashed more often than not. They came close to killing one another, Spock in fits of controlled rage, Jim with the wildness of a caged animal trying to break free. The years sanded their edges until they were two interlocking pieces with no gaps between: one without the other is incomplete.

He has often wondered what Spock was like as a child, before he ever met Humans, when he lived on a planet where he was an oddity, and even a source of shame. He wonders what would have happened if Spock had never joined Starfleet. Jim would not be who he is. Spock might have successfully undergone kolinahr, shutting out every trace of his Human blood.

As the _Enterprise_ travels back toward Earth, he can feel his hand reaching for Spock's hand, not through the separation of glass, but through the farthest expanses of space.

For many years of his life, he has been a Captain. He has lived by the rule: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. It's what Spock said to him as he sacrificed his life to save the ship. He has lived so many years by that mantra, he almost forgets that he's not just a Captain, but a man, a man who needs another man in order to exist.

When Sarek tells him he can bring Spock back, there is no question in his mind. The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the few. Or the many.

And he heads out again, on the most important mission of his life.

Genesis is a planet where bacteria have turned into monsters, chimeras of evolution. Where glaciers are rushing. Where volcanoes bring molten rock from the core. Tectonic shift occurs not in centimeters but in meters.

Life is not supposed to happen this fast. It will kill them.

He and his crew don't have to search for long, but each second stretches out like years. Even the loss of his son can't compare to the thought of not finding Spock.

When he sees the dark form on the ground, he yields to gravity, drops to his knees in the churning earth. He holds Spock, and can't let go.

He wasn't there for Spock's painful accelerated childhood, nor his first heat, a time they have never shared, and maybe never will. He envies Saavik, even though he knows she saved Spock's life by mating with him.

But she has never called Spock to Earth through light years with her mind. She has never woken from almost dying to see Spock beside her. She has never made love to him tenderly, late at night while the ship hurtled quietly through space on its way to discovery. She has never been in a different body with only Spock recognizing who she really is. She has not been saved and saved and saved, time and again. She hasn't loved Spock like Jim has.

Their history has been erased, but it is waiting to be written again.

He stands in the arid, thin air of Mt. Seleya, shot through with hope, almost dying of it – if he hadn't tried, the cost would have been his soul.

He is the only one Spock recognizes with his re-formed mind.

"Jim." The syllable undoes him. Cuts the rope of fear that has bound him since Spock gave his life to save the _Enterprise_. But it coils around him again when there is nothing more. Spock recognizes, but doesn't _know_.

When Spock asks, tentatively, "Why would you do this?", he tries to answer, tries to tell Spock everything he needs to know: "Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."

Spock nods, as if he understands that Jim is saying: _I love you. I can't live without you. I would kill for you._

That night, in the guest quarters provided by Sarek, Jim lies in the darkness, unable to sleep. The emptiness tears at him like thorns. Half of him is missing, so close, but unreachable.

He gets up, finally, and goes to the window. Outside, the hot air of Vulcan is still. The scent of desert plants fills the air, pungent and distinctive. In distant canyons, a plaintive wailing echoes something inside him. The walls of the house are warm. He leans out, breathing.

This is Spock's home. This is what he saw when he was a child, leaning out, lonely, with no one to talk to. Spock told him, once, when they lay naked and sweetly tired, how alone he'd been on Vulcan, shunned by his classmates, companion to no one but his mother. Even his father had been distant and severe in a manner consistent with his culture. Spock had stared at the stars, wondering if he would ever find another like himself.

A tap at the door startles him. The room is dark, indicating sleep. It's unlike a Vulcan to interrupt. He's not surprised, then, to find that it's Spock in the corridor, solemn, clad in his white robe, hands folded before him.

"Did you wish to see me?" Spock inquires.

Jim doesn't ask how Spock knew. Between them, there has always been mystery. "Yes, I did. Come in."

Spock steps into the dark room. Jim crosses to the lamp, touching it to cast a dim light across the space and the features of the face he knows better than any but his own.

"Spock," he says simply, and holds out his hands.

Spock takes them, wondering. "We are...close?"

"Yes," Jim says, smiling gently. He doesn't want to frighten this fragile new Spock. He remembers how long it took them the first time, when they were both afraid. Time, now, feels slow.

Spock considers their twined hands. "I do not remember. Perhaps I should join minds with you."

Jim's hands tighten their grip involuntarily. _My mind to your mind_, he recalls, and says, "I don't know if that would be wise."

Spock caresses his hands, curious, running a thumb across his palm in an innocently sensual gesture Jim has always loved. "Indeed, the deluge of information might be difficult for my mind to process. I am still healing."

How can you remember your love for someone once it's forgotten? How can you move forward without looking back? Maybe it's possible. Jim hopes it's possible.

"Will you... Will you lie down with me?" Jim hesitates, but Spock seems open, both mentally and physically, his fingers tracing Jim's.

They lie down together on the bed, Spock arranging his robe carefully, his bare feet looking tender and naked, his toes bony and slender. Jim wants to kiss them, just because they're Spock's.

"Is it a human custom to converse in this manner?" Spock asks, facing Jim, his head bolstered by the pillow.

"Among some humans," Jim responds, holding back from touching Spock's face. "Tell me what you saw. What do you remember?" Jim remembers almost nothing, so singular was his purpose.

Spock closes his eyes. "The beginning of life. The planet seemed to advance in correspondence with my own life cycle. There were no sentient beings. I was quite alone. I attempted to communicate with the flora." He smiles, a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. "I think upon it, and I wonder that I did not die."

At the words, Jim reaches out to grasp Spock's arm through the thick fabric of his robe.

"It was extraordinary to witness evolution on such an accelerated scale. I only regret that my compromised mental state prevented me from recalling everything that occurred. It was...beautiful."

Of course he wanted to study it, Jim thinks. "And dangerous, Spock."

They regard one another in silence, eyes watchful, scanning.

"Tell me, Jim, how did we meet?"

Jim smiles at the memory. "You were teaching at Starfleet Academy. I was the first to pass your Kobayashi Maru test."

"I sense there is more to the story." There's a warmth to Spock's eyes that wasn't present before.

"Let's just say," Jim says, daring to touch a finger to Spock's cheek, "that you didn't appreciate what I did to pass."

Spock lifts an eyebrow, which is so like his old self that tears threaten Jim's eyes. Spock hasn't pulled away from his touch, which he takes as a good sign.

"We didn't get along at first."

"Would it be correct to infer that we have very different methodologies?" Spock covers Jim's hand with his, pressing both against his face.

"As you would say: Affirmative."

"Fascinating."

Jim laughs.

Then they look at one another as if they've just invented looking. After a long time, Spock says, "Did I always desire you?"

"I don't know about 'always'," Jim says.

"It seems...contrary to the precepts I have been taught by the elders."

"You haven't always followed Vulcan custom. Your father objected to you joining Starfleet, but you did it, anyway."

"We did not bond," Spock states matter-of-factly.

"We did everything else." Jim remembers that 'everything' with a clarity that obliterates all of his other memories. Their voices a chorus like swiftly singing water. The feel of skin speaking to his hands. Spock's mouth telling his mouth stories with no words. How surprised he was by Spock's sensual nature, which so few knew. A cataclysm of creation the first time they joined. The cliche of earth moving, but that was how it felt. The wonder of a planet in motion, of a face unguarded.

In their years together, he has put on weight. Spock's face has become lined with age. But the nerves sing just the same. The mind thinks what it always thought. Their story is a long one, and Jim can barely remember a narrative before they were 'we'. Before they were 'us'.

He'll die first, he knows – Vulcans live so much longer than humans – but he'll hold on with every fiber of his being until then, until the moment when their bodies must part irrevocably. He can't imagine that day, just as he hardly remembers who he was before Spock defined him.

They've both made choices they regretted – Spock thinking he could go through with kolinahr because human emotion and frailty frightened him to the core, and Jim thinking he could resign himself to a life on Earth, on a planet so far from his true home. They both learned the hard way that they couldn't exist without one another.

And his strange faith returns, his faith that they will be together, even after life ends. God, he thinks, is that faith, not what can be proven, but what can't be proven. It's the believing that matters.

"Jim." His name a thread of remembering.

And then it's no longer memory but heat. Not distant but here. Hesitant but also sure. As sure as anything has ever been.

"Say it one more time," he asks. He needs to hear it.

"Jim." In his ear, on his jaw, at his throat, on the pulse of his wrist. Everywhere.

All his parts, inside and out, missed Spock with the weight of glaciers.

Later, he wakes, slow to remember where he is. Their limbs weave together like a puzzle becoming a picture. Something is returning. Water tumbling over stones, the melting snow. Something is returning from the great unknown. There's one more spring left in them before winter comes eternal.

"I remember now," Spock says. "It has been always."

They map each other again, fingers tracing vein, hair, and jut of bone. Words they are relearning: _here_ and _here_. Forever touching and touched.

Somewhere, a planet crumbles into nothing, collapsing on itself, ceasing to exist in recognizable form. Spock will grow old without him. Fall leaves drifting and golden. Fiery ephemeralities against the sky before they rustle underfoot. Before the rain pelts them down amid a roar of thunder, and they turn into soil. Whisper of water on the ancient bark of trees. Insects and ferns, the only ones to see as the rain turns to snow balanced on the curl of twigs and a few clinging leaves.

Somewhere, a planet is forming.


End file.
